Waking
by ThatBigBlueBox
Summary: He never thought he would see her again. But here she was, kneeling on the floor, sobbing, breaking his heart. [Reunion fic. Slight Nine/Rose, if you squint.]
1. Chapter 1

"Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time. It's your choice. What's it going to be?"

The young blonde woman paused, mulling it over for a moment. Finally, she decided:

"Forwards."

"How far?"

"Um… one hundred years."

The Doctor grinned almost manically as he threw the TARDIS into motion, whirling them through the Vortex. Quickly, the organic Time machine landed. The Doctor, thoroughly impressed with himself, stepped back, gesturing to the doors.

"There you go. Step outside those doors, it's the twenty second century."

Rose gaped, clearly halfway disbelieving him.

"You're kidding!" she said, and he scoffed, rolling his eyes as he stepped back up to the console.

"That's a bit boring, though. Do you want to go further?"

The pink and yellow human laughed with her eyebrows raised.

"Fine by me," she responded, most definitely feeling the thrill of the adventure. The Doctor flew around the console again, ecstatic to see that she was enjoying the wonders of the TARDIS already.

When he made an attempt to dematerialize again, however, he found that the lever was stuck in place, causing him to pause.

"Come on, old girl, let's give her something fantastic."

"Are you- are you _talking_ to your machine?" Rose asked with a note of incredulity, and the TARDIS lights flickered in a manner that could only be described as irate.

"Yes, the TARDIS is sentient," the Doctor replied, only halfway paying attention. Pulling the scanner around to face him, he gave it a little tap, but it was black. The TARDIS gave a quiet hum, as if encouraging him to go outside.

It held a hint of warning.

Glancing up at the ceiling, the last of the Time Lords gave a small nod, his grin fading. He had long since learned that she would always bring him where he needed to go.

"She's sentient, like- like she can think?" Rose cut him out of his thoughts, and he flinched. "How does that work?"

"Well, she seems to want us to go out here," the Doctor said, collecting himself. "And I trust her. Always have, always will. Come on, let's see what she wants for us in the twenty second century."

Rose noticed that he seemed to have gotten quieter than his excitement from before, and she stepped a bit closer to him.

"You alright, or…?" she questioned with uncertainty, but his grin from before spread across his face.

"'Course I am, Rose Tyler! Come on, quick errand in the twenty second century Earth, and then we're off to the stars."

They stepped outside to ruins.

It was a strange sight to behold, actually. Half the buildings were in some awful disarray, debris scattered along the road, and the other half were in pristine condition, like they had just been built. Seeing this, a real smile stretched across the Doctor's face.

"Look at this," he murmured, stepping forward and stretching his neck to the sky, before his gaze turned back to Rose. "I'm not sure when we are exactly, but this is what I love most about humans. Something awful must have happened here, and you lot, what do you do? You just keep rebuilding. No wonder you live on. You never give up."

A scream echoed through the air, making both of the time travelers jump out of their brief reverie. The Doctor grinned at his companion, and Rose returned the expression before he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of the scream.

They ran, the wind rushing through their hair, and when they arrived at the apparent source of the scream, a modest two story house, the Doctor hesitated.

"Is something wrong, Doctor?" Rose asked, still holding onto his hand. He shook his head, breathing in the air.

"I just thought…" he began, furrowing his eyebrows. "It's nothing. I just thought I heard something familiar. Shall we?"

They walked up to the front door, where the Doctor gave a sharp knock. After a few seconds, the door creaked open, and, upon looking down, the two companions saw a tiny eye peeking out nervously. The Doctor smiled at the small human, giving a little wave.

"Hello there," he said, and he pulled out his psychic paper. "I'm the Doctor, I heard there might be some trouble here? What's your name?"

"Alex," the little boy said quietly after a moment's hesitation.

"Lovely to meet you, Alex. What seems to be the trouble?"

"My mummy, she collapsed," he said, tears brimming at his eyes. "She started… she started screaming."

The Doctor crouched down to meet the boy's eyes, and stated completely seriously, "Well, lucky for you, there's a very good chance we can help. Can you let us in?"

The boy nodded, a few tears escaping his hazel eyes. He made to open the door, when a shout echoed from inside the house.

"Alex, what did I tell you? We don't open the door to strangers!" a man's voice exclaimed, and the boy disappeared from view. A man appeared in the gap then, and the Doctor could have sworn he had seen him somewhere before.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked with a raspy voice. His face was twisted in a mixture of anger, fear, and worry. "And why are you here?"

"Just here to help," the Time Lord responded innocently, raising his hands up. "You seem a bit paranoid. Mind if I take a step inside?"

"Yes, actually. You don't exactly look like local. How do I know you're not a Robohead?"

"A- Robohead?" the Doctor asked in mild curiosity.

"Oh, don't be stupid. You know they're still around. Even though we managed to take down the invasion, there are still some of them crawling around here, just waiting for the right time to infiltrate and exterminate everything we've rebuilt here. And you-!" The man looked at Rose now. "You haven't said a word. What's your name?"

"Er- it's Rose. Rose Tyler. What's yours?"

"And you?" the man dodged the question, looking at the Doctor now.

"I'm the Doctor. I heard a scream from this residence. I've come to help."

The man looked as though he'd been struck. He glanced back into the house, then back at the Doctor and Rose again.

"But that's impossible," he murmured. "Why, you- you don't even look like him!"

The Doctor gave a tight smile, one that was mostly without humor.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"But- but you're _younger_ than he was! He was- older, with white hair, feeble-"

The Doctor snorted, slightly offended at that last bit. "Yeah, well, I've changed a lot since I was like that. Lots of good moisturizer. Anyways. Do you want my help or not? What's wrong here?"

"You… you really don't know, do you?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "She told me that you might be different when you came back, but I… never expected it to be this drastic-"

Another scream permeated down the stairs and through the doorway. The man's eyes met the Doctor's. He opened the door, revealing his whole face. The Doctor recoiled in shock at the sight of the man, David, that he had left his granddaughter with centuries ago.

"Please. If anyone can help her, it's you."

The Doctor fought the urge to run as yet another shout of agony assailed his ears. He swallowed the wave of nausea in the back of his throat and forced himself to brush past David and run upstairs to a sight that he never thought he would see in any of his lives.

His granddaughter- _his Susan_ \- was knelt on the floor in a nursery, clutching her head, whimpering.

Instinctively, he lowered his telepathic shields, only to be nearly attacked by first the emptiness, and next the agony that was being projected from his granddaughter. It was an agony, he realized, that he himself had felt, and he had felt it only when he had woken up after burning Gallifrey, realizing that his mind was completely and utterly empty.

He crouched down next to her, his hands trembling as he placed them over hers, lowering them away from her head so that he could replace them with his own. Gently, he entered his granddaughter's mind, giving her a soft _sleep_ command. Her whimpers died away as her eyes slowly fell shut, and she collapsed, asleep, in his arms.

He looked up at David, who was in the doorway in front of Rose. The Doctor only then realized that he had tears in his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Time moved in a blur.

Numbly, the Doctor, the not-so-last of the Time Lords, the one who destroyed his own world, allowed the human David to pick Susan up. The minute she left his arms he felt the absence in every facet of his soul, and he almost violently put his telepathic shields back in place, staring at the ground, half of his mind replaying the scene he had just witnessed, and the other half wondering in bewilderment how she was still alive.

He had left Susan on Earth with David hoping she would be safe. That was what he told himself, at least. Back then, he had been so utterly petrified of regeneration, and he knew that his body was wearing down. He didn't want her to have to go through that with him. And he hoped that she would be able to start a new life with David, a man who had proven his worth when he had protected Susan during their time during the Dalek invasion. He thought that he was successful in all of that.

Until the Time War.

The Time Lords had made it clear that they required every able-bodied Time Lord to fight. He realized, of course, back when he was still running from his fate, that this would include Susan. The Sweepers- the ones in charge of returning every Time Lord and Lady, wherever and whenever they were in the universe- had made several attempts to take back Susan, and the Doctor's Eighth form had been hell-bent on stopping them. No way on Gallifrey was _his_ granddaughter going to fight in the bloodiest war in the history of the universe.

But eventually, they were one step ahead of him. They brought her back to Gallifrey. He had seen her before the High Council. Oh, he had been so furious with Romana when he saw what her administration had done, but there was nothing he could do. He was still fleeing the War at that point. He thought that his Susan was under a death sentence. They would send her to the front lines, and then, she would die. And if she didn't die there, she surely must have died in his inferno.

His frame gave another shudder. Clearly, everything that he thought had happened didn't. He blinked, and looked up. Rose stood above him, the pink and yellow human not having the faintest idea, not a single fathom of what was possibly going on, but she touched him gently on the shoulder.

"Doctor, who…" she seemed uncertain. "Who is she?"

Several tears were blinked away from his eyes before he responded in a voice barely above a whisper.

"She's… my granddaughter."

He was shell-shocked by his own words; he never thought he would utter them again. Not after he left her in 2165, and certainly not after the Time War.

He heard Rose's voice call after him, the tone completely incredulous, but he couldn't find it in him to care. He rushed after David, his hands trembling as the human lay Susan down on a bed that was clearly the one that they shared. He felt a numb pang of relief that she had settled down with the 22nd century man. He hadn't failed her _too_ much.

"Doctor," David said as Rose caught up to the Doctor, the human woman standing halfway in the doorway, listening quietly. "What's happened to her? She just… collapsed. Screaming about… her head, being empty. What's…?"

"Take a seat," the Doctor said, gesturing to the armchairs that were beside the bed.

"I'd rather stand, thanks-"

"Take a _seat_." His voice held all the authority of the old grandfather he had been so very long ago. David looked up briefly in surprise, and then he did as he was told.

"I don't know how much Susan told you about our people, but-"

"The Time Lords?" David's face twisted in disgust. "Oh, we know them all too well."

The Doctor raised his head, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. David shook his head, restraining his temper as his eyes flickered over to where his wife lay, unconscious.

"It was five years ago, and five years after you left her with us, after the invasion. We had begun the rebuilding process just two years before, and everything was fine. We built this house from the ground up, and helped with most of the sector too. The Daleks were still a threat in some places, so we were very careful about who we let in. You see, they'd begun to hide their spies amongst us even more carefully than with the Robomen. We don't see them as much anymore, but the Daleks- they would graft one of their eye sockets into a human's forehead, and a gun in their hand. Roboheads, we started calling them. No one knew the wiser, until they slaughtered twenty people in sector twelve. That made all of us more suspicious of everyone."

"Where do the Time Lords come into this?" the Doctor asked a bit rudely, the mention of his people agitating him.

"Sorry, sorry. Anyways, five years ago, we found out that Susan and I… well, we were going to have a baby." David's mouth quirked up ever so slightly, his eyes shining with the pride of a father. The Doctor's hearts tightened when it dawned on him that the small boy from before- Alex, he remembered- must have been his great grandson. A little half Time Tot.

"We were ecstatic, and… and we were getting everything ready, with the house, and the nursery, when… they came. The Time Lords." David's eyes darkened. "They took her. Told me about some war or another they needed her for. Left without a trace. I didn't see her for two months. I thought I'd lost her." He swallowed, blinking back the tears. "They returned her, and the look in her eyes… she looked as though she'd seen the end of the world."

"They brought her back," the Doctor muttered, unable to tear his eyes from his granddaughter. "Why would they bring her back?"

"No one stuck around to explain anything," David murmured, lost in his story. "It took her weeks to say more than a few words to me. She told me… eventually, she told me about the Untempered Schism. How they tried to make her become a proper Time Lord by looking into it so she could fight in that war, and how every time she ran away, terrified. They tried to force a regeneration cycle onto her, but her body kept rejecting it."

"Every… time?" the Doctor questioned, his voice cracking slightly. "They made her look into it more than once?"

"She said they had her for a month," David said quietly. "And she said that she was made to look once every day."

The Doctor felt sick, horror forming in his throat. His granddaughter- they had done that to _his granddaughter_. She should have gone mad.

"I suppose they gave up, eventually," David said bitterly. "But she was so scarred afterwards- when she finally did start talking again, she talked about how awful that war was. All the travesties, and the devastations, and-"

"Yes, I know about the war," the Doctor said shortly. "Believe me, I know."

David looked at the Time Lord closer now. "Susan, she… told me she knew Gallifrey wouldn't win. She didn't know how she knew, but she just… felt it. Was she…"

"No one won," the Doctor said mournfully, swallowing hard. "No one left to do any winning."

"No one left?" David asked incredulously. "How do you mean-? Surely, there must be…"

"There isn't," the Doctor snapped, causing David to draw back slightly. "There's no one left. I made bloody well sure of that."

His voice echoed in his ears, and suddenly, the emptiness in his head filled with another presence. His eyes shot over to Susan, her eyes open wide with horror.

"Grandfather?"

Her voice was as broken as his hearts.


	3. Chapter 3

" _There's no one left. I made bloody well sure of that."_

 _His voice echoed in his ears, and suddenly, the emptiness in his head filled with another presence. His eyes shot over to Susan, her eyes open wide with horror._

" _Grandfather?"_

 _Her voice was as broken as his hearts._

"What do you mean, there's-" Susan choked out, her mouth barely able to form words. "-there's no one left?"

A shudder made its way down the Doctor's spine, and he refused to meet his granddaughter's eyes.

"Susan," he began, before she cut him off, her eyes already brimming with tears. "Susan, I-"

"No, Grandfather, you said- I _heard_ you, you said that- that _you_ made sure of it," she muttered, resting her elbows on her knees as her hands seized fistfuls of hair. "The War- is it… I can't _hear_ _anyone._ "

The Doctor shook his head with tears already threatening to overflow.

"I know, Susan, my dear-" the term of endearment he had used to always use for her felt clunky on these newer, Northern lips. "I can't hear them either."

" _Why?"_ the girl- no, this woman- whispered, and suddenly, the Doctor became entirely aware of Rose's presence. He felt exposed- naked in front of this nineteen year old human he had just met.

"Rose, could you give us some- space, please," he asked in a strained voice.

"Doctor, who is she-"

"Rose, _now._ "

His tone was quiet, but it was forceful. The blonde girl appeared affronted, but she hurried from the room. The Time Lord turned on David now, who shook his head immediately.

"What you say to her you can say to me," he said, folding his arms over his chest. "We've been through everything together."

"David-" Susan didn't look up. "David, please."

She took hold of her husband's hand. "I'll be- this is my grandfather. You know I can trust him."

"Yeah, well he's changed a bit, hasn't he-?"

"David."

The man let go of her hand, and he gave a frustrated sigh, but left the room in spite of this. Now that they were alone, the Doctor looked at his granddaughter closely, trying desperately to keep his composure. She deserved the truth.

"Susan, I…" he began, swallowing hard. "I'm going to tell you of the War. You… saw the inside of it, with what they tried to do to you- what they _did_ to you. There was… so much more."

"Show me," she said, her reddened eyes shooting up suddenly as she moved her hands away from her temples, leaning forward. He shook his head immediately.

"No." His voice was flat.

"Grandfather, I'm not the little girl you left on a Dalek-infested Earth-"

"Susan, it's not up for debate," he snapped. "I will tell you what happened, but it is not your burden to see these things. The only one who must carry that is me. **I said no.** "

The last sentence was said in a forceful Gallifreyan, causing the Gallifreyan woman to quiet.

"Now. I will tell you what happened, sparing the details. The War… had its roots at the beginning of the Dalek race. The Time Lords… sent an agent to destroy them at their genesis. That agent failed, and the Daleks received that… poorly." Purposely, he avoided stating that he was that agent. He tried to ignore Susan's shudder at the mention of the Daleks. "Millenia after their creation, they waged war on the universe. Got hold of Time travel. Abominations were created, weapons of Time that utilized the Vortex, bent it, twisted it, tore it. The Eye of Harmony was destroyed. Countless planets throughout the Universe were wiped from existence. The War lasted for centuries or millennia, depending on how bent your Timeline was."

"You… fought?" Susan's voice was small. The Doctor wished he could disappear.

"I never wanted to, but… yes. It caught up with me in the end. It caught up with everyone." He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before continuing. "But the threats to Gallifrey went deeper than just the Daleks, or even their creations. The High Council became corrupt. They ousted Romana, and they revived Rassilon from the dead."

"Our creator?" Susan asked, confused further. "But Rassilon was meant to be a good man."

The Doctor let out a bark of laughter that was completely humorless, making his granddaughter flinch.

"In legends, he was. In reality, he was a megalomaniac. Released Zagreus again, bent on being a god. And in the end, he was no better than the Daleks. He wanted total Time Lord superiority, and he was going to destroy the Universe, making a select number of Time Lords- all Prydonian, of course- only beings of light consciousness. That was his Final Sanction."

"But… he didn't go through with it," Susan said, losing herself in her grandfather's words. "The Universe is intact. Did you stop him?"

The Doctor stilled, trying to remember to breathe. "Yes." His voice was barely a whisper.

"How… did you stop him?"

"There was no other way," he muttered, feeling the revulsion directed at himself rising again. "I… there was a weapon. The Moment."

"What did the Moment do." Susan's words were a statement, formed in a coarse, ragged murmur.

"The Moment sent out a wave of highly condensed energy to surround Gallifrey and the Dalek saucers attacking us. The weapon trapped them in a single Moment of destruction, a bubble in a constant state of destruction."

There was silence, and then a loud slap echoed across the Doctor's face. He took it numbly, knowing that he deserved it. That was the very least.

Susan rocked back and forth on the bed, a muffled scream escaping her lips as the noise was blocked by her clenched teeth. The Doctor opened his mouth again as he laid a hand on her shoulder, but she recoiled once again, running from the room and down the stairs. The Doctor faintly heard David call after his wife, but nothing else was heard except a slamming door, and then silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**/ A.N - Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favourited this story! I'm at university so updates are unfortunately quite sporadic, but I will do my best to finish this one as best I can! (Summer can't come fast enough, haha!) Enjoy, and if you want, leave a review! /**

The Doctor reached.

His brain felt fuzzy, and his telepathic ability felt even more stunted than it had in the days directly following the War. All he heard was the rushing roar of silence. He hadn't once taken down his barriers since then for more than a matter of seconds. Time passed. He sat, rigid, trying to make sense of the thing.

The feeling was like a lost limb. Or… maybe a sense, he thought numbly, but he knew it was much more prominent than the human sight or touch. When he had first awoken, screaming, from the regeneration, he had sworn he had gone deaf. He had sworn someone had gone into his brain and taken a dull, rusty spoon and had carved their way through his telepathic cortex. He had been under the influence of telepathic dampeners before, but this… this was less _dampening_ and more _agonizing._

It had scarred over, in the years following the War. He had forced himself to protect his mind all the Time, and while it was painstaking at first, anything was better than the ripping, galaxy-shattering silence.

Now, he had to actively remind himself to take down the shields, as though he had forgotten it was actually his natural state. But they had to find Susan, before she got herself killed, and he would be the last.

Again.

He reached for Susan in his mind, but it was still eerily silent. He could feel her presence- he breathed in relief at that- but she was closed off.

She was blocking him out, he realized with a pang of heartsbroken dread. He understood completely.

The Doctor shoved his way past David (amidst his cries of, "what have you _done?")_ and stormed for the door, only to nearly topple over a tiny body standing in the way. He looked down, and, his vision blurry, he saw the form of little Alex, who had opened the door for him. The Doctor realized he was looking through his own tears. Hastily, he wiped them away.

"Are you bad?" the child asked, a drop of fear lacing his voice. "Did you hurt Mummy?"

The Doctor felt as though the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream, _yes, I did, I hurt her in deeper ways than you could possibly ever imagine._

Instead, he crouched down, and as he looked into Alex's pale blue eyes, he saw a light that he had always seen in Susan when she was younger. Trembling, he took the child's small hand in his own, hoping, dreading that he was right about something.

"You sound like Mummy," Alex said before the Doctor could say anything, and the Doctor felt a wave of ten million emotions wash over him as he felt the child's telepathic presence interact with his own, in a familial bond, confirming his suspicions. The presence was weak, being diluted by the human, paternal side, but it was there. It was there.

"Alex," the Doctor said quietly. "Your Mummy might be in danger. I'm going to help find her, but I need your help." The half Time Tot's eyes were wide. Their blueness reminded him of his first regeneration. "I need you to go up to your room, and sit very still, and make sure that if your Mummy tries to come back there, you'll be there. Do you understand?"

The Doctor felt distrust coming off his great-grandson in waves, but the boy nodded, scared, yet determined. Clearly, danger was not foreign to him.

"Go on, then. Good lad." The Doctor's voice shook as he patted the boy on the shoulder, and stood back up, his vision clearing as Alex ran upstairs. Inhaling sharply, the Doctor turned around to face a furious David.

"Who the _hell_ do you think you are?" David murmured in a dangerously low tone. "You can't just come waltzing back in here, terrorize my wife, and act like you own the bloody place! Do you know how much we have gone through, all without you? There were times she would sit awake at night looking out the window like she was expecting you to come back for her! You told her you would come back, and well, here you are, years later, struggles later, and what do you do? You make her run out to God knows where by-"

"Would you _shut up_?" the Doctor snapped, suddenly aware of Rose's presence and feeling at once very afraid David would say something he knew would make his new companion run screaming from him. _Selfish_ , he thought derisively. "We need to find her. You say it's dangerous out there, yeah? You say there are Rassilon-forsaken Dalek mutants prowling the streets, just looking for someone to kill? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not about to lose her again."

His voice broke off as he finished speaking. The anxiety welled in his stomach at the thought, and by the ashen look on David's face, he could tell his grandson-in-law was remembering other Times. The younger man swallowed hard, his frame trembling slightly in emotion. Hesitating, he eventually nodded weakly.

The Doctor turned to Rose, who looked terrified and confused. He felt a pang of guilt at that. Some first adventure for her to witness.

"Doctor, what's going on?" She had tears in her eyes, and the Doctor felt a distant part of himself nod in approval at her ability to empathize.

"Rose, I need you to stay here," he said, and, seeing her about to protest. "No. You don't… you don't know Daleks. They're the most dangerous beings in the Universe, and I will not let them be the first aliens you experience, because they might be your last."

He could tell she was still uneasy being left behind, so he added. "Besides, we can't leave Alex here alone. He's too small. Make sure he doesn't wander off. Please." The last word was uttered with a note of desperation. Rose eventually nodded in acceptance.

The Doctor put his hand on the doorknob, his knuckles noticeably white with anxiety. Inhaling deeply, he opened it, and he and David stepped outside into the unknown.


End file.
